Selected Prose: Castle Peak is Never Old

In the distance, a burst of gongs and drums is sonorous, which is distant and clear in the night wind. Is it nature? The mountain breeze is rustling, and the sound of corn woodland is rushing. I have a terrible feeling that my scalp is tight. On the high Liquidambar formosana field, under the deep blue sky, the endless green waves of corn forest roll and stretch. I walked out of the hut and asked my father doubtfully: How can there be gongs and drums when there is no one in Fiona Fang for dozens of miles? My father told me that it came from far away with the wind. Maybe someone in the village married a daughter-in-law to do good deeds. Liquidambar formosana is so big that the production team has reclaimed dozens of acres of land and planted all kinds of corn. Mountains are high and forests are dense, and there are many wild animals. In order to prevent those wild boar, pig badger and pricking pig, the captain asked his father to watch the cornfield at night and earn more work points. We set up a simple hut by the field, patrol the field at night or use gongs to scare away the wild things that spoil the corn at night.

Fengxiangjie is just an obscure hill among hundreds of thousands of mountains in western Hunan, but it has left a vast memory in my childhood. The vast and desolate Wuling Mountain is endless. Mountains are connected with mountains, and mountains are surrounded by mountains. Santo Mountain, Santo Mountain. Wanling, Qian Shan, all over the mountains, Qingshan seems to be heading for a feast of life.

The township road from Guzhang to Zizyphus jujuba runs through Wuling Mountain area. At that time, jade belts generally floated on the white clouds and wrapped around the mountain neck. After a while, it drifted to ravines and valleys, holding the mountain village by the stream.

Thirty years ago, when the Gushan Highway was built to the junction of jujube and cow neck, the highway command post was located on the opposite slope. At that time, our seven or eight-year-old children got into Fengxiang after school and went to Changchongpo to see mountain guns. ? Watch the mountain and prepare to shoot! ? The tweeter kept shouting. In about five minutes? Light the gun! ? As the commander shouted, there was a loud bang one after another, and yellow flowers rose in Ran Ran in the jungle, which was spectacular. One meter, two meters, one kilometer, two kilometers? Extension, extension?

For many years, I have stubbornly believed that it was the sound of guns that broke the tranquility of the mountains and awakened the villagers' misty dreams for thousands of years. The green hills are cut away day after day, and the valleys begin to turn yellow.

The avenue of the city extends to the countryside, the civilization of the city extends to the countryside, and the trickle penetrates into the vast land. Pine, Chinese fir, miscellaneous wood, one after another, a cart, drove into the city. Dirt roads, gravel roads, sand blasting roads, cement roads and country roads are constantly widened and straightened to increase hardness and comfort.

Qingshan is not old, and every Qingshan can't accept the dream of rural children's growth. Growing up, dreaming of growing up accompanied by the road in front of the village, a group of rural children who graduated from junior high school and high school went to the world outside the mountain along the road in front of the village. The castle peak is getting denser and denser, the mountain village is getting quieter and quieter, and the quiet wind roams in the village, whistling for a long time and blowing green.

Like a debt owed in a previous life, we sweated under the sky of the city and talked under the sky of others in Kan Kan. In the lush years, groups of brothers and sisters left the village and went to the city; Batch after batch, my brothers and sisters left the village and went to the city; After batch after batch, when we grew up, we lost our heavy schoolbags, bid farewell to our sixteen-year-old youth, and left the village to look for it in the city. The dream of youth is like a swallow's mud, and it is like a river in front of our door, and the white clouds and pale dogs are gone forever.

The river in front of the village gurgled day and night, and the days of my hometown echoed in my heart day and night. The wind of 16-year-old boy is blowing on the cheeks of youth, and the years of youth are full of different kinds of mulberries. That year, after graduating from junior high school, I left my hometown with several partners in the same village and came to Shenzhen. Moving cement, bricks and mortar, we hold up the height of the city with tender shoulders. Year after year, we grow taller; Year after year, the city is getting higher and higher; Year after year, we worked hard to cast brick houses in our hometown with sweat, as if they were taller and taller. No matter how my friends pull me and laugh at me, I always stubbornly believe that when I save enough money, even if it is ten or twenty years, I will build a brick house in my hometown. Every time in the dead of night, when I write down a little bit of life experience under the lamp, I feel it seems difficult for me to grow up under other people's sky. My vast and desolate Shan Ye is my permanent home, the place where I have cultivated in my life, and the place where I am eager to convert.

Once the dream is born, even nine cows are hard to pull back. Set out, where the dream begins, resolute, decisive, awe-inspiring, awe-inspiring.

Every year, every year, we children who leave home migrate to the north and south like migratory birds. When I come home during the Spring Festival, people are like a flood, holding a hand on my shoulder, carrying a big bag and a small bag, holding a child's hand. We have surged into a torrent and become a landscape that attracts worldwide attention. With a year's harvest, rich or sorry, after the Spring Festival, we gathered in the city from all directions of the motherland, chasing the footsteps of the city and looking for a hopeful home.

10 years later, along the road where Gu Shan left home, my wife and I came back with our children and never went out again. Although our peers have repeatedly invited us to say that the income from working outside the home is already considerable, we are unmoved. After all, with the income of my wife and I, there is still a certain gap to integrate into the city and gain a foothold in the city. The cost of a house and children's schooling is beyond our means. Over the years, we have only saved enough money to build brick houses in our hometown.

Whether wandering in a distant land or traveling in the mountains and rivers of our hometown, our eyes are always bound, attracted and summoned by the endless green hills in front of us, and it is difficult to give up.

On the way of Gushan Highway passing through my hometown, we chose a slope with fields, land and water as a place to build houses. Behind the mountain are barren hills, and further up are terraces. In a large chestnut forest, there are several families scattered. That's our hometown, four miles from the expressway. At the foot of the mountain is a stream, which gurgles all year round, clear and bright. Even if it overflows, it never becomes turbid. Opposite is the steep Daqing Mountain. Holding the castle peak, guarding the castle peak, once the dream soul, now, the dream will come true.

After breakfast every day, my wife and I packed lunch from the old wooden house on the mountain and walked to the side of the mountain to start our day's work. First, a road should be built from the roadside to the construction site, so that building materials can be transported by car. A hoe, a shovel, a car full of sunshine, a car full of moonlight, a car full of Dai Yue in Starlight Glimmer, rain or shine. A month later, Gong Yu moved mountains and paved a dirt road with a width of two meters and a length of one hundred meters. Then level the foundation, take stones from the mountain, dig footings, build blocks, and transport bricks, sand and cement. Fortunately, I have been away for many years, and I am also engaged in construction work. It turns out that I build tall buildings for others and my brothers live in sheds. Now I'm actually building a brick house for myself. Although hard, my heart is sweet. It's just that my wife is exhausted and she always refuses to let her rest. Rural women, not bitter, are used to it, bitter before sweet, as she always says. After a few months, people are tanned and thin, which makes people feel distressed. When many people are needed to water beams, erect precast slabs and build roofs, several villagers are called to help. In this way, the two-story building was completed in only three or four months. Choose a good day, invite relatives, friends and villagers, set up a few tables, drink a few glasses of wine, set off some firecrackers and celebrate. So a small village with only one family was born.

Reclaim the barren hills around the house, plant rape in winter, and golden rape will flood in spring. Houses will rise and fall like ships in the golden waves, passing cars will often stop and cameras will keep shooting. Corn, pumpkin, bitter gourd, loofah and long beans are planted in spring, while Chinese cabbage, radish, coriander, beet, cucumber, eggplant and pepper are planted in Qiu Lai, which is breezy and colorful all year round. Everything is natural, no need to rush, just like the river flowing in front of the door. Naturally, peach trees, plum trees, pear trees and chestnut trees line up in front of the house and grow sturdily with the spring breeze and spring rain, which is spectacular.

Daqingshan in front of the door is our other home. Being with Daqingshan and walking into Daqingshan is like walking into your own back garden and vegetable garden. Daqingshan is a huge green treasure house with dense flowers and trees. There are timber trees such as pine, fir, cypress, bamboo and Chinese toon on the mountain, as well as precious plants such as Metasequoia and Ginkgo biloba. There are economic tree species such as camellia oleifera, tung oil tree, chestnut and bamboo, and precious medicinal materials such as gastrodia elata, ganoderma lucidum, ginseng, codonopsis pilosula, vetiver and wild lily. Everything in the mountains is competing for glory, and bobcats, rabbits, squirrels and bamboo rats are playing among the rocks; Long-tailed pheasant, owl, wild turtledove, thrush, starling, cuckoo, etc. Leap over Yu Songbai, showing great vitality. Wild woody plants with bright colors are: rhododendron, rhododendron, Lagerstroemia indica, five-leaf tea, cherry and so on. Herbaceous plants mainly include: lily, lily, Dysosma versicolor, Saxifraga, bluegrass, lobster flower and so on. The main lianas are Akebia stem, Schisandra chinensis, kiwi fruit, Gynostemma pentaphyllum, Spatholobus stem, wild grape and so on. Common edible fungi are: wild mushrooms, Pleurotus ostreatus, auricularia auricula, tremella, fir, Celosia cristata, papaya, Chinese fir, peeled auricularia auricula and so on. All kinds of trees are spectacular and magnificent. If thousands of shuttlecocks fall from the sky, it is like ten thousand swords sticking out of the ground, which are endless and stand sparsely, full of masculinity. There are also many ancient trees, which are born together and close to each other.

Daqingshan is our good pasture. In the morning, 100 many sheep, 5 pigs and dozens of chickens were driven into Daqingshan. At night, blow the whistle to gather sheep, pigs and chickens. The chicken walked lightly in front, jumping and flying, the sheep bleated with its bulging stomach, and the pig hummed and followed closely. The rich grass on the mountain keeps growing all the year round, and letting sheep walk into Daqingshan is like walking into grassland. Sitting on the stone steps in front of the door, I can occasionally see the figure of sheep flashing in the lush green shade of Daqingshan opposite, as if white clouds were floating across the blue sky. Pigs also eat grass, whether they can eat it or not, the pigs themselves will say that there will be no poisoning incidents. Pigs will also arch out chestnut seeds falling from trees and seeds left by birds from the soil and eat happily. Chickens mainly dig worms, but also eat grass and seeds. When laying eggs, hens will lay their eggs in hidden grass, so turning the grass to find eggs has become a job for mountain people, just like turning the grass to pick up fir, which is also a happy and refreshing thing.

Winter has come, and Daqingshan has become a dense tent. The huge tree crowns are stacked one after another, covering the blooming snowflakes. Under the tree, winter wheat, pigs, cows, sheep and chickens are still enjoying themselves and foraging in the warm embrace of Daqingshan.

Qingshan is not old, sitting on Qingshan, floating clouds and wild cranes, poetic life.